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Paul McGuigan(2015)

Review

Our Score

by James Luxford

This retelling of the Frankenstein legend is told from the perspective of Igor (Daniel Radcliffe), a circus clown who becomes the assistant of the brilliant physician Victor Frankenstein (James McAvoy) on a groundbreaking but shocking experiment. What starts as a bold attempt to revitalise an old story soon feels more like just another Frankenstein movie (and not a very good one at that). Too many subplots are tossed together, with the film's theatrical climax messily resolving them without much emotional payoff. Radcliffe's efforts to provide the moral centre of the story are drowned out by McAvoy, who leaves all subtlety at the door with a maniacal performance that's amusing at times. Andrew Scott does his best as the puritanical detective on Frankenstein's case, but like Jessica Brown Findlay's love interest, the character is simply too underdeveloped. A jumbled, disappointingly bland film that falls into old traps, leaving you wondering why this Mary Shelley adaptation needed to be made at all.

Summary

A sideshow performer is taken in by a scientist, who seeks his help in performing experiments to create life, and hopefully uncover the secrets of immortality. The plan goes dangerously out of control, and it falls to the devoted assistant to save his master from his dark obsessions and his monstrous creation. Gothic horror, starring James McAvoy and Daniel Radcliffe.